The dos and don'ts of job-searching in the credit crunch

Vicky Hurley looks at job hunting during a recession

Was anyone aware that we are currently facing a credit crunch, recession, deflation, soaring food prices, huge energy bills... a really bleak spring, a wet summer, and more rubbish reality TV? In times as depressing as these, it is hardly a surprise that companies are disintegrating faster than Michael Jackson’s facial implants, shareholders are on Tomazipan, nobody believes there is a 'God' anymore and of course, just to make the hangover even worse, the good old supermarkets are practically giving alcohol away.

The impact on the financial services industry has been pretty interesting to put it mildly, so how do you find a new job in a market place such as this? The key is to get all the preparation and ground work absolutely perfect. With the prospect that the supply of actuaries is going to outstrip demand due to budget constraints, redundancies and recruitment freezes, you need to make sure you stand out against all the other candidates.

The first step is to remember that your CV is purely a marketing tool to get you an interview. You need to ensure that for each job you apply for your CV is perfectly tailored to it. This doesn’t mean lying or embellishing the truth, but it does mean you should clearly and concisely illustrate the experience and expertise you have, so that it ties in with the requirements outlined in the job spec. It will then be immediately apparent to the reader that you have all the skills that they are looking for.

Your CV should also show a degree of progression via an increasing level of experience or responsibility as this demonstrates good management of your career to date. Needless to say this means that, more than likely, you will have a different CV for each role you apply for, and although this represents a fair amount of work on your part, you should consider this an investment towards your future career.

So the perfect CV gets you an interview, and while you should be very satisfied about this, don’t spend too much time celebrating as now the hard work begins again as it is all about preparation, preparation, preparation. The web is a great tool to get a lot of the background information you need. Read through the company website, get a feel for the culture and work ethic. Have a look through the latest set of accounts, read the press releases and potentially read the biographies of the people that will be interviewing. And always, always use a search engine to find as much general information as you can about both the company and the interviewers.

Now armed with all the background you need, you need to concentrate on the actual interview and the questions that are likely to be asked. With that in mind, always make sure that you understand the format of the interview well in advance. It may be competency-based, skills-based, a general CV walk-through or any combination of these.

The format of the interview will determine your preparation. For competency-based questions, you must think of about five different projects at work from the start right through to the end. You need to think of all the things that went wrong and what you did about them, or what you could or should have done about them. In this way you will have good solid examples to give when asked all the tricky questions like, “When was the last time you removed your foot from your mouth?” and, “Why did you put it there in the first place?”.

For a more technical interview, make sure you read and re-read your CV so you can talk knowledgably about everything you have done. Technically-based interviews may also give rise to more general questioning such as, “How do you think the industry will react to XYZ?” and, “What do you see as being the problems with the proposed ABC legislation?”. So make sure that you are aware of relevant industry developments.

You will need to practise answers aloud, and preferably have one or two dummy runs with your recruiter or friend or a family member. One of the common problems of just thinking through questions and answers in your head is that you don’t give yourself the opportunity to hear how the answers come across, and also what question the interviewer will ask you next as a result of your answer. Getting tongue-tied and losing direction are other obvious pitfalls.

Along with answering the specific questions being asked, you also need to prepare key messages and consider how you want to get these across. Hence you should also approach each question along the lines of not, “How do I answer this question?” but, “How do I include some of my strengths while giving the answer?”.

Remembering that it is all about preparation, preparation, preparation will rarely see you sell yourself short, and please, please, please avoid the “classics” in the table below! Happy job-hunting!

The Classics to be avoided

CV Classics	Interview Classics
I have not been successful in securing employment to date.	Q : “Why are you looking to move?” A : “I’m not really”
My main interest is surfing the internet, you can come across some very informative sites.	Q : “How do you rate your technical skills?” A : “Not very highly – nobody else does”
Languages: Spanish (numbers, colours and foods) and English (fluent).	Q : “What do you see as key to negotiation?” A : “Your voice”
Career Objective: to work as an actuary in pensions, life or non-life in either a consulting or corporate environment.	Q : “Describe a situation when everything went wrong?” A : “How long have we got?”
Project Management: I have had quite a lot of experience managing projects, particularly those with a tendency to over-run on budget and deadline.	Q : “In what way do you think you will stand out against other candidates that we are seeing?” A : “Mmm, that’s quite a difficult one – to be honest I’m much like any other actuary”
Always up to date with legislative and regulatory changes, particularly with respect to the DTI returns.	Q : “What do you do if you face conflict from one of your staff?” A : “It never happens – I make sure that they know exactly who is boss”
Hobbies: philately, philanthropy, philosophy, photography and computer Scrabble.	Q : “Why the interest in our company?” A : “Well, I have applied everywhere else without success, you are my only hope”
Profile: As an extremist, I have the ability to judge staff according to my own criteria. This avoids the need for wider consultation and means that I can independently and effectively manage teams with very little input from others.	Q : “How do you feel about travel as part of the role?” A : “I’m not a keen flyer to be honest, and I find train travel daunting. I lost my driving license a couple of months ago, so travel by foot is fine”
IT Skills: limited use of a word processor, basic programming (from some 15 years ago)	Q : “How do you feel your experience in a pensions field will aid you in a general insurance role?” A : “I’m not sure that it will to be honest”